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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23423731">Baptised in Blood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostwriter98/pseuds/Ghostwriter98'>Ghostwriter98</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Antlers the Colour of Blood [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Rising (2007)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst With A Side of Angst, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mason's back and he's worse than ever, Pet Hannibal?, Prequel, Protective Siblings, Self imposed starvation, Wendigo Hannibal, human will</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:53:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,224</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23423731</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostwriter98/pseuds/Ghostwriter98</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Hannibal was Will's, he was Mischa's.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hannibal Lecter &amp; Mischa Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Antlers the Colour of Blood [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/940473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>231</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Birth of a Beast</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This serves as a prequel of sorts to Never Cage a Predator and follows Hannibal's childhood and life until he meets Will and kind of explains his obsession with him. It's a lot darker than other parts of the series though so beware of that and read the tags.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The wendigo is born from the belly of a stag. Not just any ordinary stag though. A ravenstag. A majestic beast with a feathered mane as dark as obsidian and a coat as sleek as oil that shimmers silver in the moonlight.</p><p>The ravenstag has the blood of a thousand hunters on her hooves, but it is not this that stains the grass black tonight. It is her own blood.</p><p>Her belly is gaping open, split from the inside by the same little claws that are fighting their way out. A small black lump wriggles its way out of her.</p><p>The ravenstag peers down at the sight of her young and licks at the blood on his face so she can get a better look at him.</p><p>She smiles, calls him, “Death”.</p><p>This is death’s mother. She dies soon after. Her blood seeps from her wounds into the soil, now crimson and wet, returning to the earth. A life for a life.</p><p>This is the way of the ravenstag.</p><p>Death opens his mouth and tries to make a sound. A whimper comes out, but it sounds wrong. He grimaces and tries a ripping snarl instead. That sounds better. That feels right.</p><p>He gets up onto his feet, wobbling unsteadily. There’s a grumbling sound and the vibrations of his stomach startle him. Death is hungry and there’s food right in front of him. He reaches into the split in his mother’s side, the hole from which he came from, for something soft and edible. He feels something hard and sharp instead. Yanking his hand back, he lets out a startled yelp. His head whips back and fourth, making sure nothing heard this soft sound of weakness, before relaxing. He is safe. For now. He hesitantly puts his hand back in, pressing past soft organ and tissue, and grabs onto something sturdy and rounded. He pulls, claws slick and slippery with blood. An arm comes out first. Its black and thin like his own. Then a small round head. It’s his twin.</p><p>She’s smaller than he. Hannibal knows deep down, his animal instincts flaring up, that he does not owe anything to this weaker sibling of his. He can leave her there to suffocate in their mother’s belly. There’d be more food for him that way and nature wouldn’t grudge him for acting in his nature. It’s the way of the world. The strongest predator thrives while the weaker ones die. Death knows this and yet something in him warms at the sight of this face so similar to his own. It does something to him, knowing the same blood runs through their veins. It creates a sort of bond.</p><p>He decides to keep her and names her Mischa.</p><p>She turns to him, in turn, calls him Hannibal.</p><p>They dine together on their mother’s flesh and he licks her clean like his mother did for him because that’s what love is.</p><p>It is baptised in blood.</p><p> </p><p>----:----</p><p> </p><p>Though they are similar in size and age, Mischa is comparatively weaker and less developed than he is. She crawls around on all fours and wheezes and huffs as though her growl has yet to form. Hannibal knows it’s something he must have done in the womb. He easily imagines himself absorbing all their mother’s nutrients and leaving her wanting. Wendigo’s are greedy by nature and this is the first and last time that he will ever be ashamed of that part of himself. </p><p>Hannibal doesn’t think of Mischa as a sister but rather as his charge because he is the one who dragged her into this world and named her under the light of the full moon. Her safety is his priority and he keeps her hidden and tucked away in a warm leaf pile while he learns how to survive.</p><p>He learns when he’s thrown into the river by one swipe of a massive paw (three red gorges on his chest) that the larger creatures, the ones with brown thick fur and large claws, are too strong for him to take on yet. He must work his way up to them. He starts with the birds where he discovers the importance of stealth, skulking low in the tall grass and staying deathly still as he waits for the blue bird to inch closer to the worm, one final meal before he pounces. He then moves onto rabbits where he learns how to move with speed and agility and finds the perfect angle to bend his legs to really fly. Then comes the foxes, crafty creatures with their little dens, where Hannibal learns the importance of patience and wit.</p><p>All of his kills, he shares with Mischa. Hannibal feels himself bubble with pride as her cheeks fill out and her small belly protrudes. Her body grows stronger, but her mind does not. She remains simple, but happy. Where Hannibal must push himself constantly (run just that little bit faster, kill something just that little bit bigger) to find his pleasure, Mischa need only weave crowns of flowers or dance with the birds. She moves with the wind, bobbing her head where a flower crown rests on antlers made for skewering and twists her delicate wrists this way and that with her claws made for killing. So gentle is she, that she weeps whenever she sees death. More than once, Hannibal finds her cradling the body of a tiny bird, its eyes and face half eaten by ants. And her eyes so expressive, so pain filled, pin him.</p><p>Hannibal can never tell her that what he feeds her, the delicious red pulpy mush that she coos and thanks him for, is the animals she loves so dearly.</p><p>Hannibal is brave in many aspects of his life but in this he is a coward.</p><p>And this will be his downfall.</p><p> </p><p>----:----</p><p> </p><p>Hannibal doesn’t know how she learns the truth. All he knows is that one day he returns and she is not dancing with the birds. Instead, she is standing as still and cold as a mountain.</p><p>He goes to her, nuzzling at her neck to feel her temperature. She feels normal. He sniffs her next and yet the hot fevered sweetness of fever alludes him. Perhaps she’s just hungry?</p><p>He nudges his kill towards her.</p><p>She whimpers and turns away from him. Her cheek is soft against his own. Everything about her is so soft.</p><p>Hannibal nudges her again, this time firmer, and growls. She surprises him by growling back.</p><p>Straightening himself up to his full height until he towers over her, Hannibal places a hand on her head. This isn’t the time for soft caresses, it’s the time for dominance, but he can’t help himself but give her a gentle pet before he guides her head towards the food. She struggles against him and his grip on her neck tightens and turns forceful.</p><p><em>Eat,</em> he thinks angrily. <em>Eat what I give you.</em></p><p>There’s a blur of black and Hannibal’s cheek stings.</p><p>He lets go, blinking in shock. His sister is gone. He touches his face and feels wetness, feels blood.</p><p>She has scratched him. She has<em> hurt </em>him. The most gentlest creature in existence, the creature Hannibal loves more than anything else on this earth has purposely hurt him. The knowledge of that is more painful than the stinging throb of his cheek. More alarming to him than the fact that she has marked him as weak to the other predators with such an obvious facial injury. </p><p>The world spin on its axis.</p><p>Why has she done this? It makes no sense. Mischa adores him.</p><p>Hannibal hears a rustling and squints at the edge of the clearing. There’s a fox, its muzzle red, and the innards of a bird spilling onto the grass.</p><p>And just like that he knows.</p><p>Everything is blurry, distorted. A wall of endless green. Rivers fall from Hannibal’s eyes, but not rivers of tears, rivers of blood. It’s hard to see. Hard to think.</p><p><em>She knows</em>. S<em>he knows and she’s leaving.</em></p><p>Some beings are made to be monsters and Mischa, lovely Mischa isn’t one of them. Nature should have made her a bird or a rabbit. Something gentle and sweet.  Something Hannibal could eat and keep inside of him forever.</p><p>Even now, after drawing blood, she is no predator. Hannibal can hear her whimpering in the distance. Her little feet pound the earth irregularly as though she can’t run straight because she’s stumbling around blinded by sadness. She’s not thinking of stealth or agility. She’s only thinking about running as far away as possible from him.</p><p>Hannibal can’t breathe. He hadn’t foreseen Mischa leaving him. She will die without him, that’s a fact. She doesn’t know how to hunt or kill. She doesn’t know how to find shelter when it’s raining and it’s too hard to see the danger lurking about. She doesn’t know what the hunters look like. The way their guns work or their sizzling nets. </p><p>All she knows is how to dance with the birds and weave crowns of flowers. And how to be happy. How to make Hannibal happy.</p><p>There’s only one thing for it. Hannibal has to convince her to come back and stay. He barrels after his sister. He feels too much. Fear that she will never forgive him. Anger because he was just keeping her alive, why can’t she see that? Everything he does he does for her. His emotions are scattered and maybe that’s why he doesn’t smell them and doesn’t see the glint of their guns and the shine of their nets until it’s too late.</p><p>All he sees is Mischa on the ground, in pain, writhing and screaming. Screaming out his name, “Hannibal!”</p><p>This is her name she had chosen for him. Her name because death doesn’t exist in her world. The world of Mischa is too bright, too colourful, to be marred by such bleakness. And her brother makes her happy like the ball of light that is the sun. He is her happy ball. Her Hannibal. And Hannibal had let her name him because to name something is to own it and he wanted to be owned by her. He had wanted to always to be in her heart.</p><p>Hannibal falls to the ground before her, frantically clawing at the net that separates them. His body jostles and convulses but that doesn’t stop him from prying at the nets. He grits his teeth and shudders through the pain, squabbling at the restraints in his desperation to get to her.</p><p>That’s when the two legs grab him by the neck. He’s sluggish and weak and unable to throw them off. Unable to be the bigger predator for once. The net has zapped him of all his energy and when they throw his own net atop him, he falls weakly to the ground and curses his trembling limbs and stupidity. He should of thought like the fox, peeking for danger outside of its den. He should have been swift as a bird and gotten to her sooner. He should have thought like the two legs and brought weapons. He should have been the <em>better </em>predator.</p><p>A two leg throws his sister over his shoulder like some prized deer. She cries out, eyes wide. She doesn’t understand. Of course, she doesn’t. This is the first time she’s encountered evil and Hannibal isn’t there to hold her through it. Instead, he’s being pulled away.</p><p>“Hannibal!” she cries, pawning at the net. “Hannibal!”   </p><p>They laugh at her feeble struggles. And they laugh at his roar.</p><p>Hannibal sees blood on the grass. Her blood. The world fades away while his ears ring. All he can hear is her voice screaming out his name in a loop. Her voice frightened, wavering with terror, begging him to fix it. Fix it like he’s done so many times before.  </p><p>But he can’t. Not this time.</p><p>His mother’s words echo in his ears.</p><p>“Death,” she had called him. He is death and death corrupts and it decays. It causes grief and it hurts. Death doesn’t get to love. Death doesn’t get happiness because it takes.</p><p>It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.</p><p>But, as Hannibal has learned, life rarely is. Especially to the monsters.</p><p>So be it, if Hannibal can’t have his happily ever after, then he will rob these vile two legs of theirs. He makes a promise then. He will hunt them down one by one and when they are bleeding and bawling at his feet, he will show them no mercy, just as they had failed to show his sister.</p><p> </p><p>----:----</p><p> </p><p>Hannibal’s dragged from van to van. Though all vans differ in size, shape, and colour, they always smell the same; always smell like oil and smoke. It disgusts Hannibal in the way only the two legs disgust him. He’s always in cages, always guarded by men with guns, always watched.</p><p>The cages are small and cramped. He sleeps where he eats and he eats where he defecates and over time this eats and eats at him. Until he is Hannibal no longer. Only a beast.</p><p>He doesn’t care at the indignity of it all. That he, a top predator, is being treated as a pet by these lesser beings. He doesn’t think of escape or of the forest with its green luscious trees and earthy smelling dirt. That is no longer his home. Without Mischa, the forest is nothing but a place, as uninviting and cold as the metal bars of his cage.</p><p>The two legs hit him with sticks and zap him with cattle prods but that doesn’t make him set after the wolves or make him obey their commands to eat bloody lumps of deer. He won’t do any of their tricks and so the owners get bored quickly and pass him on and on and on. </p><p>Sometimes he howls like a wolf, but not a wolf in a pack. A lone wolf. A lone wolf waiting for an answering call from their family, but it never comes. </p><p>Hannibal feels nothing, drifting in a world of grey. He’s emptier than he’s ever been but for the first time in his entire life, he’s not hungry or starving. He has no appetite and so he fades and withers away much like his memories of Mischa do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'll try to have the next (and last) chapter up within a week because I feel kind of bad leaving Hannibal like this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Cruelty of Man</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's been a little over a week but it's here!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Then, one day, Mason Verger comes along and changes everything. Blond and perky with menace in his eyes, he commands Hannibal’s attention. He takes one look at the wendigo, nothing but skin and sadness, and says, “It’s okay, boy. I know what’s wrong. I’ll fix you up real nice.”</p><p>He turns to the two leg that currently owns Hannibal. Stew has a body that is either firmly planted on his sofa or the driver’s seat of his van and Mason's disdain is obvious.</p><p>“What have you been feeding him?” Mason asks.</p><p>“Deer,” Stew grunts, scratching as his stomach. Bits of pizza crust fall from his clothes onto the floor. Mason winces, patting at his own impeccable fur coat in what one would assume was sympathy, except Mason Verger doesn't do sympathy.</p><p>“I see. I see. I’ll give you fifty grand for him,” Mason says.</p><p>Stew’s eyes bulge. “Really, man? I mean, I’m not complaining or anything, but why? He looks like he’s on his last legs and he won’t do a damn thing. Won’t hunt. Won’t eat. He won’t even rage. He just stares at nothing.” He kicks out at Hannibal’s cage and grumbles, “Lazy animal.”</p><p>“Really?” Mason smiles with his sharp teeth. “Well, I know just the thing that will perk him right up.”</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>“Get me the keys to his cage and I’ll show you,” is Mason’s mysterious reply. Stew bites.</p><p>“Are you ready for dinner time, my pet?” Mason coos, lowering his voice and reaching through the bars to stroke at Hannibal’s head. Hannibal stiffens instantly, lower lip curling at the intimate touch to his antlers. He tries to bite him, but Hannibal is so very tired and Mason is too quick for him, withdrawing his hand. When Mason makes to pat him again, Hannibal shuffles to the very back of the cage. He stands, but then hunches over dizzily, because he doesn’t have the energy for that much. He growls a little but it comes out weak and broken sounding.</p><p>“Now, easy there, boy. You save that for the nice man who’s giving you to me.”</p><p>Hannibal blinks at Mason.</p><p>Stew is back, keys jangling in his meaty hands.</p><p>“You got him standing up?” he sounds impressed.</p><p>“I can do more than that,” Mason promises, taking the offered key. Stew turns to watch Hannibal, wanting to see another miracle. Mason opens the door and shoves Stew inside, slamming the door closed behind him with a resounding clang.</p><p>Stew freezes. Hannibal too. He can’t remember the last time a two leg was this close. His mouth waters, eyes darkening as adrenaline courses through his weak limbs. He straightens up until he's at his full intimidating height and growls again. This time it comes out right. Low and deep and guttural. A predator once more.</p><p>Hannibal looks at Mason.  </p><p>“Go on. Show me what you can do,” Mason urges with childish glee.</p><p>Hannibal attacks. He bites at the junction between shoulder and neck until Stew is bloody and raw.</p><p>“Hannibal, Hannibal no,” Stew pleads weakly.</p><p>And, no, he doesn’t get to say that. Not that name. It doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to Mischa. It’s wrong for him to say it, sinful, disgusting. Hannibal rips off the man’s jaw and goes for his tongue as punishment. His screams echo and bounce around the walls of the van.</p><p>“Hannibal,” Mason says aloud, testing the name. “I like it. Sounds scary. Perfect for a monster.”</p><p>Hannibal tears Stew’s arms off, strips them of flesh, licks the blood off them and goes for the marrow. He does the same for the legs. He bites into the heart with relish, paying no attention to the blood that trickles down his chin. He gorges himself until he is full to bursting. Content. Purposeful. He’s hurting the kind who took his sister away, after all, and one day he will reach them, the two legs responsible, and he will kill them so slowly that they will welcome death with open arms by the time he is done with them. </p><p>“I’ll take him,” Mason says to no one in particular.</p><p> </p><p>----:----</p><p> </p><p>Mason gifts him with a paradise. A cage that is not really a cage. It stretches as far as Hannibal’s eye can see. There’s a little river with water trickling. There are colourful flowers that spurt from the earth, adding bright splashes of red and softs hues of pink against the green oasis. </p><p>The trees rustle with the wind, wind that is real, not false like the weird contraption two legs have created that spews it. That air is stale, still and smells like sweat. This wind is rich with earth and cool and moving like water. </p><p>He hears the chitter of bird song. Mischa would have been happy here.</p><p>Hannibal’s heart aches in his chest. He scratches at it, hoping to tear it out.</p><p>He's in paradise and somehow that’s worse than the vans and the small cages and the beating sticks and the cattle prods. Worse because the idea that he will be here, living almost as freely as he had once in the wild, while Mischa is locked up somewhere, alone in the dark, is awful. Worse still because he will be constantly reminded of her in the birds that she would have danced with and in the flowers she would have made crowns with.</p><p>No, Mason has not gifted him with a paradise. He has thrusted him into hell. And there will be no escape. Hannibal’s only relief comes in the sound of the cage door opening. The panicked breathing it’s accompanied by, sweat on the air, dinner served.</p><p>Then one day it’s one of <em>them.</em> The one that had slung Mischa around his shoulders like a trophy. Hannibal relishes his screams as he eats him slowly from fingers to forearm, from toes to knee and makes sure to staunch the wounds with large leaves so he lasts longer. Hannibal snarls at him, demanding to know where she is, <em>tell me</em> - but the two leg either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care to answer. He lasts days.</p><p>Mason loves it. This sheer brutality his monster has never shown before. He claps and whistles and rewards him with another. Then another and then another.  </p><p>Hannibal grows strong again on the blood of his enemies. He eats regularly and when he isn’t eating, he’s building up his strength. He practices hunting on small prey, practices moving stealthily and silently. He starts from the beginning until he is as good, even better, than before. Until he’s better than the foxes and birds and bears. Even better than the two legs. He practices until he's ready to hatch his escape plan because though he’s killed them all, he still doesn’t have <em>her.</em></p><p>It’s as if Mason knows what he’s doing because one day he comes by with a story.</p><p>“You know, Hannibal. I’ve been doing some research on you. Stuff like where you came from and how you got caught because I know a fellow predator when I see one and we’re not caught easily, beasts like us.”</p><p>Hannibal says nothing because he understands nothing but his name. Mason’s words are gibberish. Some strange language that’s harsh and vulgar sounding to him.</p><p>“I found out about her. Mischa. She was your sister, right? I’ve got a sister too. Lovely little thing. I keep her with me all the time.”</p><p>Another word Hannibal knows. Another name. This one more sacred than the last. Hannibal changes his mind. This language is beautiful or has the potential to be as long as it tells him what he needs to find her.</p><p>“The thing we’ve got to keep in mind is that a world like ours, it’s not built for prey. And that’s what she was, wasn’t she? A weak, sickly beast. At least, that’s what Angus told me before, well, you know.” Mason waves in the general direction of Hannibal’s last kill. “Good for nothing but soup, he said. I admit, I thought it was kind of funny. Considering you eat us, it seems only fair a few of us eat you back.”</p><p>All Hannibal understands are the words Mischa and prey together. <em>Prey.</em> That’s what those other two legs had said to him when they pointed at deer and wolves. When they wanted him to attack, to kill and eat. Hannibal feels a sick churning in his stomach.</p><p>“Look, I can see what’s going on here. You’ve gotten your revenge and now you’re trying to get back to her. What I’m trying to say is that there’s nothing to get back to. Frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Don’t get me wrong, I love Margot and all, but if someone offered me a paradise I’d tell her bye bye darling. Oh, she’d be guttered, I’m sure, but sometimes blood just isn’t worth it, ya know?</p><p>Hannibal blinks, combing over each word, desperate to understand.</p><p>“You don’t get it, do you?” Mason sighs. “Well, that’s fine. I guess you’ll never know.”</p><p>Mason moves to leave and Hannibal scrambles after him, pressing up against the bars of his cage because he has to <em>know.</em></p><p>“What?” Mason coos at him. “What is it you want, boy?”</p><p>“Mischa, Mischa,” Hannibal chants.</p><p>“Huh, so you can speak after all. Good boy.”</p><p>Mason throws a special “treat” into Hannibal’s cage. The ear flops to the ground where it lays abandoned.</p><p>“Mischa,” Hannibal repeats.</p><p>“Oh no. Not so easily. Not until you show me a few tricks.”</p><p>That’s what this has been about the whole time. A set up. An opportunity for Mason to humiliate Hannibal by dangling something he needs over him.</p><p>“Now, roll over,” Mason says.</p><p>Hannibal has seen Mason play these tricks before with his little four legged creatures that make a lot of noise and wag their tails. Mason had done it in front of his cage a few times, most likely in preparation for this moment. He had wanted Hannibal to know what the commands meant.</p><p>“Come on, Hannibal. Roll over.”</p><p>Hannibal swallows his pride. It’s not the first time he has done so since captured and he has a feeling it won’t be the last. He slowly crouches down and then moves onto his stomach. He moves slightly and rocks but he just can’t bring himself to do it. That final humiliation of rolling over. Before, in the cages and the vans, it was like he was numb. There was nothing in him left to care and so it hadn’t hurt to be belittled and mistreated. Now though, his pesky feelings are back and with them, dignity and pride. He swallows it, allows himself to feel the grass that’s cold and soft to the touch. It makes him think of nights spent lying on the soft earth and staring up at the stars with Mischa. <em>Mischa</em>. He’s doing this for Mischa. And suddenly it’s easy to roll over and stare up at Mason, awaiting his “treat”.</p><p>A finger comes flying his way and hits him in the chest. Hannibal pays it no mind.</p><p>“Now <em>beg</em>.” This is yet another word Hannibal can’t understand. He tries. Oh God, he tries. He jumps and barks and does all the other things he’s seen Mason do with those other pets of his but none of them are right. Mason grows impatient, tapping his foot and muttering to himself familiar words: idiot, dumb animal, a waste of space.</p><p>Hannibal doesn’t have to know the exact meaning of the words to know he’s being insulted. And still he tries to please Mason, until he finally collapses into a heap, exhausted and panting from exertion.</p><p>“Alright, you did your best and I always try to reward my pet when he does his best, hmm.” Mason brings out a small box from behind his back and shakes it. Many somethings rattle inside. The smell is strong, familiar, the faintest traces of birds and the perfume of sweet flowers and blood. Not just any blood though but their blood, their shared blood. Mason puts the box in front of the bars and Hannibal shreds the brown material with his claws through the gap. It tears as easily as skin. Inside is bones. Nothing but bones. <em>Her</em> bones.</p><p>Hannibal falls to his knees, hands grasping at the parts left of her. And it is here, that Hannibal finally whimpers.</p><p>“See, good boy. I knew you could beg for me!” Mason praises and throws him a heart. It falls to the ground and splatters on the grass. For a second Hannibal thinks it’s his own because all that’s left in his chest is that bone deep empty ache again.</p><p>“Now you’ll stay, won’t you? You’ll stay because you have nowhere else to go?”</p><p>For the longest time, Hannibal does just that. He lets the numbness take over and the starvation begin anew. He lets what he later learns to be grief take over his life. Weak, emancipated, he wonders if he too will one day be bones in a box for Mason to rattle.</p><p>He’s sure for the longest time that he will die in that cage.</p><p>He could never have predicted Will though.</p><p> </p><p>----:----</p><p> </p><p>Hannibal knows the second that he smells Will that things will be different. Where most two legs are tantalising and delicious, Will reeks. Too salty and bitter, hurt in a way Hannibal can understand.</p><p>Hannibal can’t help himself. His usual impeccable self-control won’t hold, won’t allow him to skulk in the shadows and watch from a distance until he can make a plan of action. Instead, he crowds up against Will the second his back is turned and breathes him in. There’s something lingering under his nails. <em>Blood</em>. This one’s a fighter.</p><p>Then Will turns around and what really gets Hannibal are those eyes. Eyes that are greener than the forest, bluer than the sky, and filled with a violence Hannibal has only seen once before in the reflection of a river.</p><p>This one is death. This one is like him. Where Mischa was his opposite, light and kind where he is dark and violent, Will is his equal. Sure, he trembles now, breath rattling with fear, but he will be something powerful one day. Hannibal will make it so.</p><p>Oh. Hannibal is so full of excitement. Overwhelmingly so. He vibrates with it. He had forgotten the first principle of nature. The first and only lesson his mother had taught him before she died. What comes around goes around. Just as the leaves shrivel and die a purpled death, falling from the trees in winter only to be reborn in the spring, green and lush. Just as ravenstags die with the birth of their young. Just as the bird gives nourishment for the fox only for the fox to die and give nourishment to the soil. Hannibal knows that nature will right his wrong. That because a companion was taken from him, he has been gifted one in turn. A life for a life.  </p><p>That Will is of the species that hunted him and his sister is a cruel irony. But Hannibal doesn’t worry himself with that for long. That can always be changed, of course. But only if Will is amendable. Only if Will can understand. Only if Will can love him. Because Hannibal has no desire to have an unwilling companion. He has spent enough time caged to know that to force that kind of existence onto someone else is a cruelty even he can’t commit. Perhaps a tableau is in order? One where they worship each other. Perhaps then he will get his answer.</p><p>Hannibal aches to touch, his claw already extended towards Will’s face, but he pulls back at the last minute when he realizes he's moving too fast and being too rough. He presses his claw to his mouth and teethes at it to keep it still. Biting has always come naturally to him, after all. A moment later he lets himself touch, to feel Will, all the while reminding himself to be gentle<em>, gentle.</em> Everything about Will is so very two legged. His bones are so fragile. Hannibal could easily break him in two and eat him up. He frowns when he gets to Will’s stomach. It’s sunken in like a hole and the ribs jut out like rocks. While Hannibal knows this is normal for wendigo’s, he also knows it is not for two legs.</p><p>Hannibal glances over at his latest kill. Would he eat it if Hannibal offered? He’s never seen two legs eat raw meat before. Could they? Never mind. He would find out. Though Hannibal almost always feels the pangs of hunger in his stomach, there is no reason for his Will to as well. Hannibal will see him sated. He will fill Will with food as Will will fill the void in his chest. </p><p>Life hasn’t been fair to Hannibal, but this. Maybe this will make things right again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I think this marks the end of the series which is ironic since this fic is the beginning, in a way? Thank you all for your support. I wouldn't have written this much without you!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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